8 clips on work and professional development, 3/14/12

This is basically a link dump post of items that I have found contain useful information related to work, career, and professional development. In essence, these are links to things I want to remember for future reference.

This was written mostly for PhD students, but I think it is applicable for anyone who may have been in academia for a long time and now needs (or desires) to find a job outside of academia. It is a given you may have to reinvent yourself in such a situation. So, via Escape the Ivory Tower, remember that “they don’t know how awesome you are.”

Barbara Pachter provides some pointers on how to stay in touch with former bosses or other professional colleagues. Networking is always important for your career growth, but you also need good manners.

Via The Bamboo Project, here are “Six Positive Professional Development Strategies for the Toxic Workplace.” In my line of work, contrary to what a lot of celebrity blogging librarians would have you believe (at least non-pseudonymous ones), libraries are not little slices of heaven on Earth. Some are nice, and others not so much. If you happen to be stuck in one of the toxic ones, you need to take care of yourself. You still need to continue your professional development regardless of whether you choose to stand and flight or send out your resume to get out of town. This article offers some small places to start a more positive process for your professional development.

On a related theme, via Dumb Little Man, here is some stuff on “How to Deal With a Job You Hate.” Again, not everything is Eden on Earth. When it is not, you need to find constructive ways to deal with things and still keep on growing.

And to pick something in librarianship, here is In the Library With a Lead Pipe. They have an article offering a Q&A on Professional Development. This is mostly geared to library school students, but there are still some useful things for those of us already fortunate enough to be out in the field.

Via Hack Library School, a post on “The Skills You Don’t Learn in School.” That refers to library school. This is a topic a colleague and I often talk about, and I suppose it could be a topic for a longer post over at the professional blog. But for one, I don’t really feel the inclination nor the time to write that longer post up. But the post on skills does offer some food for thought.